Lower classes rejected penal justice and intervened physically at its public sites
Evidence
It would seem that certain practices of penal justice were no longer supported in the eighteenth century – and perhaps for longer – by the lower strata of the population. This would explain why executions could easily lead to the beginnings of social disturbances. Since the poorest – it was a magistrate who made the observation (Dupaty, 1786, 247) – could not be heard in the courts of law, it was where the law was manifested publicly, where they were called upon to act as witnesses and almost as coadjutors of this law, that they could intervene, physically: enter by force into the punitive mechanism and redistribute its effects; take up in another sense the violence of the punitive rituals. — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 117
Categorization
- XREF: connects to: Police used ex-convicts to maintain lower-class hostility toward delinquents — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 436; The law prosecuted lower-class crime while sparing refined upper-class spoliation — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 572; Poorer classes would revolt to defend their tolerated illegalities — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 138 (+4 more)
Related
- Poorer classes would revolt to defend their tolerated illegalities (similarity 0.86)
- Class-based disparities in punishment provoked popular riots before the Revolution (similarity 0.85)
- An underprivileged mob can create a lower class through sheer violence (similarity 0.83)
- Spectatorship of punishment was already class-divided before the prison era (similarity 0.82)
- The law prosecuted lower-class crime while sparing refined upper-class spoliation (similarity 0.81)
- Police used ex-convicts to maintain lower-class hostility toward delinquents (similarity 0.81)
- The penal apparatus morally reeducated the poor into legalism (similarity 0.79)
Broader Connections
- Poorer classes would revolt to defend their tolerated illegalities
#corroborates(0.85) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 138 - Class-based disparities in punishment provoked popular riots before the Revolution
#exemplifies(0.80) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 117 - Black lower-class customs amounted to a political rejection of English bourgeois morality
#exemplifies(0.78) - Spectatorship of punishment was already class-divided before the prison era
#expands(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 394 - The penal apparatus morally reeducated the poor into legalism
#contradicts(0.75) — Michel Foucault, Discipline & Punish- The Birth of the…, 436